There are sadly no cheat codes in real life, but we’ve got the next best thing! Our ultimate guide to The Sims 4 cheats contains everything you need to know about how to enable cheats, and then how to use said cheats to fulfil your sims’ every need… or brutally murder them. To each their own.
The Valorant characters roster is what developers Riot Games hope will set the game apart from its venerable competition in the tactical shooter genre. With each character sporting four unique abilities to help turn the tide of battle, there’ll be an awful lot to learn when this free-to-play FPS releases in the summer. So why not get a headstart now by reading this here Valorant characters guide, so you’ll know exactly what to expect from each Agent and their abilities!
After leaving New York to visit Washington, D.C. in The Division 2, Ubisoft have now returned to the location of the first game in a new expansion. Warlords Of New York is its name, and hunting down the first game’s baddie through is its game. The expansion launched on PC yesterday (consoles today) annnd now it might be worth a go, after a hasty hotfix targeting problems like not being able to talk to key NPCs. Bit of a problem, that. But the hotfix launched a few hours ago so go on, escape to New York.
Everyone from Taylor Swift to Tyler, The Creator has written a song about flowers. Fancy restaurants scatter them over melting chocolate bombes. Van Gogh even had a crack at painting some once, I believe. And after all, why not? Flowers bloom all around the world, and symbolise so much to so many different cultures. Final Fantasy is far from the only video game series to lean into flower metaphors – but few have done it better.
As with so many of Final Fantasy’s strengths, the best examples can be found in Final Fantasy VII. Already considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series, the upcoming remake (eagerly awaited but a PlayStation exclusive until April 2021) has seen Cloud’s battles against Sephiroth back in the headlines. It’s been talked about so much since its original 1997 release that it’s hard to imagine anything about it remains underrated, yet the flowers are a seldom appreciated piece of Final Fantasy VII’s world building which the high definition makeover really must get right if it’s to get anything right at all.
I don’t know what’s happened further down the timeline, but it would appear that the terrifying Acer Thronos mega chair has been overthrown by a new gaming overlord: the gaming bed. Conceived in Japan by gaming desk maker Bauhutte, this cursed concoction is actually a Power Rangers-style amalgamation of all their gaming furniture combined. Only instead of transforming into a mighty-morphin’ humanity-saving mech suit, it’s a mighty-morphin’ gaming prison designed to bombard us with more #content than we could ever possibly consume. The only thing it’s missing is a built-in bog hole.
Pulsating with irrepressible energy, Sayonara Wild Hearts is a music-based arcade game which lets you ride motorcycles and riposte teddy girls, all while balancing on a massive aerial sword that sails through the air at 200mph. It’s a euphoric and unexpectedly emotive experience, brimming with explicitly queer and feminine energy fortified by its bisexual lighting filter of pink, purple and blue, and an electropop soundtrack influenced by the likes of Charli XCX and Chvrches. Given that the game is made up of an eclectic mix of genres from side-scrolling shooter to bullet hell, it’s a marvel how much the music is in sync to the movement on screen.
When I spoke to Daniel Olsén, one of the soundtrack’s composers, he shared that Swedish developer Simogo didn’t intentionally give Sayonara Wild Hearts such a distinct queer vibe. Instead, they were motivated to make a game that’s just more inclusive.
There’s a lot of Half-Life: Alyx to coo over in those three gameplay videos Valve released yesterday. Googheads might be smitten with catching grenades in mid-air, opening a car door to take cover behind, or lifting the lid on a portaloo then reaching in deep with your digiarm. Me, I have simple pleasures: I am well into the needlessly extravagant reload animation on what I believe to be a sci-fi shotgun. Who wants the fiddly task of manually loading shells when you can have a little mechanical arm do it at terrifying speed? Not me.
Are you finding the Champion of Stormfall mode in Wolcen a bit slow going? If so, you may want to look into giving Expeditions a go. These are small gauntlets where you explore dungeons and grab lots of loot. It’s worth playing this mode a few times to try and get the most production out of it. (more…)
There’s simply no stopping the SSD deals train this week, as today there are more great savings to be had on a bunch of really rather good WD Black and Blue SSDs and HDDs over on Amazon US at the moment, including almost 50% off the heatsink version of their excellent WD Black SN750 drive. Normally $150 for the 500GB model, you can now bag one for $80, which is the cheapest it’s ever been. So come inside and do the SSD deals dance with me, because there are some right tasty deals to be had here.
The Sims 4 liker has logged on again. This week she (I) was poking around for some nice potted plants to download for some ongoing build projects, and found a list of recommended custom content makers by Ravasheen, the creator from my first ‘custom content of the week’ post. Ravasheen recommended NynaeveDesign for great plant work, and lo – Nynaeve does great plants. I was cooing over them in pigeon-y delight when, a few pages deeper in Nynaeve’s creations on archive site The Sims Resource, I stumbled across a bunch of great pokémon crap.
There’s a handful of films at home that the family and I very rarely end up watching. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Revenant. The Imitation Game. Her. The Judge. Absolutely outstanding films, but they’re also what we call “heavy” – and we seldom have the emotional energy to sit through two hours of “heaviness” at the end of a long day. So we pretty much never bite the bullet and say “You know what? Let’s finally do this.”
Today, I’m biting the bullet. I’m gonna talk about something that makes me very sad to think about. It’s a game called Steel Circus, and last month the developers bit their own bullet, shut down the servers, and pulled the plug on their dying game. Which is such a gruelling shame, because Steel Circus was probably the most fun I’ve had in any competitive game since Rocket League.
Seems that Nvidia have gone and put their foot in it again with their cloud streaming service GeForce Now. This time, they’ve failed to ask Hinterland Studio to include their game The Long Dark in the library. In return, Hinterland have asked for it to be removed from the service. This follows several other games being removed from GeForce Now, with some publishers pulling their entire catalog.
Last Friday, after multiple large publishers cancelled their appearances at the event, the yearly Game Developers Conference was postponed. Originally scheduled for March 16-20 in San Francisco, the conference has been postponed to “later in the summer” due to concerns about potential spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. GDC say they will refund the cost of passes to the conference to attendees but tickets to the event itself are hardly the only lost investment for smaller developers. Many may be unable to refund the cost of plane tickets, lodging, and other personal or business costs associated with preparing for a large industry event. Wings, in collaboration with several other indie game publishers, have opened applications to their relief fund for developers, which they say will be assessed based on “estimated impact.”
Half-Life: Alyx will be here before the month is out and Valve are kicking off March with three new gameplay videos. There’s the usual headcrabs, of course, but we also get a look at exploding, healing, shooting, and plenty of other important VR action verbs. Valve have separated these into three videos to show off three types of VR locomotion: teleporting, shift, and continuous. Step lightly around the headcrabs though, right?
With recent Runeterra patch notes making some much needed changes, the newest patch (0.9.1) is more here to fix bugs and introduce some new guardians and boards. Detain also now works as it should against champions. In order to keep up with all the changes that will be made to the game, I will be looking over the changes that are being made when every Runeterra patch note post is released and seeing where the biggest changes are going to be.
Following the postponement of this year’s Game Developers Conference due to concerns about the Covid-19 virus, the organisers of other upcoming games events must surely be asking themselves that same difficult question. For E3 2020, at least, the Entertainment Software Association say they’re keeping an eye on things but “moving ahead full speed” with planning. Which I guess means they’re are hoping this will have blown over by June?
Now that we’ve gotten a proper look at Baldur’s Gate 3, the ol’ war machines are firing up. Baldur’s Gate games from years of yore featured the combat shared by other Infinity Engine games—real time action with the ability to pause and dictate to your party. Baldur’s Gate 3, developed by those Larian folks of Divinity: Original Sin 2 fame, will have turn-based combat similar to Larian’s last big RPG. So then, which is better? Come hash it out, but please do so in an orderly, turn-based queue.
Alright folks, it’s really happening. Fallout 76, the online Fallout game where the only people in town were other players, is getting more people. Fake people, that is, because it turns out that fleshy faces were quite missed in irradiated West Virginia despite the many amusing robot characters wandering around. As long promised, Bethesda are sending human characters into the mix to begin rebuilding, quest giving, and companion-ing with players. The big Wastelanders update is coming in April at last and Bethesda’s now shown off nearly 20 minutes of gameplay (with some developer Q&A over top) at PAX East.
Kojima Productions will bring Death Stranding to PC on June 2nd, PC publishers 505 Games announced today. The falling-over simulator debuted on PlayStation 4 in November 2019. The PC version is getting some nice little extra features, as well as a few weird Half-Life bits. I think Norman Reedus can wear Gordon Freeman’s glasses, a little red Valve valve on the back of his noggin, and a headcrab as a hat? See for yourself in the trailer below.
The Division 2 is heading back to the flaming bin-lined streets of the Big Apple this week with the launch of its brand-new expansion, Warlords of New York. Swapping the sunny sights of Washington DC for the now equally sweltering-looking streets of lower Manhattan, The Division 2: Warlords of New York is a great excuse to jump back into Ubisoft’s giant open world looter shooter – and what better way to make sure you’re fighting fit for tomorrow’s big release than by having a gander at my freshly updated The Division 2 PC performance guide?
Below, you’ll find everything you need in order to get the best performance from The Division 2, including what you need to hit that all-important 60fps at 1080p, 1440p and 4K on all of todays best graphics cards, and the areas where you can cut a few corners if you find your GPU’s starting to struggle. I’ve added loads of new graphics cards to my Division 2 PC performance guide since I first put it together last year, bringing it bang up to date for 2020. So whether you’re jumping into the game for the first time or picking up where you left off last year, here’s how to get The Division 2 and Warlords of New York running like a well-oiled machine on PC.
New psychic combat abilities and new quests are among the features that might be added to RimWorld‘s Royalty expansion, lead developer Tynan Sylvester has said. Today he issued a wee update on plans for the sci-fi colony management sim’s first expansion, which launched last week alongside Update 1.1. He explained that while he’s tended to operate quietly before rather than raise players’ expectations and risk dashing them when plans change, now he’s going to be a bit more open. He also noted that big-numbered updates for RimWorld aren’t over, with at least an Update 1.2 coming at some point.
Valorant is the upcoming team-based tactical FPS from League Of Legends developer, Riot Games. Yeah, I’ll just let you read that sentence again, and ruminate on the fact that Riot Games have, after over a decade, created something that isn’t League Of Legends. You good? Good, because now we’re gonna bombard you with absolutely everything we know about the game, from news of the Valorant release date and upcoming beta to details on the roster of characters, abilities, and weapons you’ll get to play with in-game.
I have been rude about Myst for longer than many readers will have been alive. Seriously, I’m talking for 21 years professionally, and six years before that as a hobbyist hater of terrible games. But, today I confront myself with an uncomfortable reality: I’ve not played it in a very long time. I’ve been wrong about other games. What if I’m wrong about Myst? What if my deep-set loathing of this screensaver with levers is based on the opinions of a less advanced earlier iteration of myself?
If I had to choose a single incident to sum up my time in physics-y medieval build and destroy ‘em up Besiege, it would probably be the time I got 15 steps into its 33-part guide to making a plane, saw that it was asking me to access the “advanced build” menu, despaired for a second, and then realised that I didn’t need a plane at all: I could do what I wanted to just by making a really tall, leggy mess of a thing. This was my quintessential Besiege moment for a lot of reasons, but the main one is this: Besiege lets you do a lot of very complicated things, but it’s actually a lot more fun when you’re just messing about.
Riot Games, the gang behind League Of Legends, today gave the big reveal-o to their mysterious multiplayer shooter formerly known as Project A – their one upcoming game not based on League. Valorant is its name, and ‘Counter-Strike meets Overwatch’ is its game. A reductive comparison, sure, but an unavoidable one after Riot released a gameplay video showing one full round. Valorant will launch free-to-play sometime this year, and for now we have this video:
You know your deals herald loves a good SSD deal, and today’s offer on the 1TB Crucial MX500 might be just up your street if you’re looking to expand your PC’s storage banks. Now available for £92 at Amazon UK, this is the cheapest this SSD’s been in almost a year according to my CamelCamelCamel price tracker, making it a good time to snap up one of the best gaming SSDs you can buy today.
Back in August, I got most of the way through writing a Have You Played on 1990s’s SimEarth, before coming to the awkward realisation that some of my perceived adventures in that game had actually occurred in another game entirely – 1992’s SimLife, also produced by Maxis. In here’s where I get in really hot water, because it’s hard now to tell what happened in SimLife, and not in SimEarth.
Have you ever wondered what the engagement value is on posting a banger? Have you ever read the exact words: “damn, this went viral, check out my Soundcloud,” and wondered how many people actually checked out that Soundcloud? Paradigm and The Dungeon Experience developer Jacob Janerka wondered too. Following the surprise success of a topless tweet, Janerka decisively proved one of two things – either Twitter isn’t driving wishlist engagement, or bare nipples just ain’t the marketing gold they used to be.
Screenshot Saturday Sundays! A weekly game development beauty pageant where the prize is a spot in my weekly screenshot round-up. A fitting reward, I feel. This week: underwater zookeeping, dizzying side-scrollers, an impractical garden, and the second-worst hostel bed I’ve ever slept in.
Dinosaur survive ’em up Ark: Survival Evolved has always had one problem. Exactly, and only, one single game-breaking issue. Until now, you couldn’t build a castle on the back of a colossal sea turtle. Shameful, really. But after numerous delays, Ark: Genesis‘s sea-bound houses finally arrived earlier this week. Now it’s just a matter of finding someone to lend you planning permission for that shell.
If there’s a niche games haven’t really filled, it’s lazy Sunday morning telly. Something for when your gran’s round, with a hot cuppa and the gentle patter of a light shower tapping against the windows. This week, Dovetail Games are flicking the channel over to Great British Railway Journeys, a Train Simulator spin-off that’s delivering Michael Portillo’s frightfully English BBC Two series to Steam on March 5th.
This week, we got to see Baldur’s Gate 3, the Game Developers Conference was postponed following Covid-19 concerns, the coronavirus caused trouble for a load of other events too, and Platinum announced a kaiju game. Read on for more of the week’s PC gaming goings-on in our News Digest, and do also check out the Weekly Updates Update for the week’s patches.
Seems we slipped up, y’all. Apparently Rock Of Ages 3: Make & Break was announced last August but, looking through our archives, it seems we haven’t actually talked about it yet. Whoops. Clearly, we were just holding out ’til we got some good, heavy footage of ACE Team’s boulder-bothering threequel. This week the cardboard pantheon delivered, with 13 minutes of boulder-smashing Rock Of Ages 3 action coming hot out of PAX East.
This week, RimWorld got a big update with geese, GTA Online added Formula One races, Wolcen kept on patching, and Star Wars Battlefront added a playable Ewok Hunter. Read on for more of the week’s PC gaming patches in The Weekly Updates Update.
Fasten your seatbelts and pull out your sick bags, the fastest loop-de-loops on PC are making a comeback. A remake of Trackmania Nations – simply titled Trackmania – is sitting in Ubisoft Nadeo’s garage, the developers announced this week. This year’s model is going seasonal, adding daily tracks and regular tournaments to keep your tyres firmly on Trackmania’s gravity-defying tarmac when it arrives on May 5th.
A new threat is preparing to take on Warframe‘s interstellar ninjas. Operation Scarlet Spear kicks off next month, pushing the sci-fi stakes higher as The Sentient begin their system-wide invasion. Wait, we’re having visitors? Oh gosh, but the place is a mess. Before the next battle can begin in earnest, developers Digital Extremes have decided to put together a doozy of a housekeeping update, bringing dozens of quality-of-life changes to Warframe early next week.
I love a stylish game. Style, as so many fashion icons like to remind us, is an enduring sense of individuality and seemingly effortless flair. Of course, it is not so easy to discover one’s own style. It requires a clear conviction in one direction or another, and the consistent dedication to maintain it. Honing a specific style across a video game’s entire development cycle can be difficult, especially when there are dozens of people on an art team. For this reason, allow me to hold up a few slices of the independent games scene as an ineffable example of style.
I’ve been pretty vocal about my love for the stylings of devs like Sokpop, Jenny Jiao-Hsia, Blendo Games, Studio Oleomingus, and Kitty Horrorshow, among many others. Here are some fresh styles — old and new — that I found this week on the ol’ internet. Here you’ll find bubblegum pastels, uncanny environment horror, folktales, 1980s VHS tapes and back again. It’s good.
Talk about taking the enemy by surprise. After a 16-year march, Blueside’s action-RTS hybrid Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders stormed Steam’s gates this week. Like long-delayed sequel Kingdom Under Fire 2, the once Xbox-exclusive original’s heavy metal battles straddle the line between strategy and slashing – executing grand tactical manoeuvres with the same direct control you’d use to hack off a goblin’s head.
Happy Leap Day, everyone! It’s February 29th so you can do things today that NOBODY CAN HOLD AGAINST YOU until 2024. I think that’s how it works. Go wild! But maybe it’s best you stay home and wait out this Purge situation.
What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!
This year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco has been postponed, the organisers announced tonight. GDC 2020 was was due to run March 16-20 in San Francisco with hundreds of sessions and tens of thousands attending. The organisers say it is postponed, not cancelled, and they “fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer.” This is not a big surprise. Companies including Blizzard, Microsoft, Epic Games, Sony, Unity, Amazon, and Facebook/Oculus had already pulled out of GDC as a precautionary measure against the new coronavirus going round. The mayor of San Francisco has (unrelated to GDC) declared a local emergency too. GDC pass refunds are on offer, and a grassroots effort is forming to help marginalised developers who’ve blown precious money on attending.